Democrat Chris Murphy (right) shakes hands with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) at a rally in Hartford, Conn. on Nov. 5: Murphy has joined Blumenthal as a Democrat who body-slammed Linda McMahon in a U.S. Senate race. AP Photo/Jessica Hill

In a 2010 campaign against Democrat Richard Blumenthal, McMahon sunk tens of millions of her own fortune into a failed bid for a Senate seat in the famously liberal state. This year, the McMahon-Murphy head-to-head has made for one of the more expensive races in recent memory, with McMahon retooling her image to recast herself, per TheNew York Times, as a "moderate mother and grandmother." According to Talking Points Memo, the McMahon campaign even went so far as to distribute door hangers urging Obama supporters to vote for the Democratic president and the GOP Senate candidate. Murphy, meanwhile, struggled with name recognition and funding, and needed the help (and funding) of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to sustain himself against McMahon's onslaught of self-funded ads.

Here's what the Twittersphere is saying about Murphy's victory:

Ben Smith at Buzzfeed:

Lesson of Connecticut —& perhaps Mass.— is perhaps just how hard it is to cling to the rock in the face of national wave in partisan state